MSNBC Spitefully Labeled A Former Contributor ‘Palestinian Journalist’ After She Spoke About The Network’s Bias

Journalist Rula Jebreal is speaking out against MSNBC for unfairly using her nationality to label her, after she called the network out last week for its bias towards Israel in the coverage of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. When Jebreal — who is Palestinian, has Israeli citizenship and is married to a Jewish man — pointed out what she sees as a “disgusting bias” towards Israel in the network’s coverage, her upcoming appearances were promptly cancelled.

When the MSNBC finally did have her back on, they labeled her “Palestinian Journalist” instead of, you know, “MSNBC Contributor,” as she had been typically called for the entire two years she had worked for the network. Not cool, MSNBC. From the Huffington Post:

“I felt terrible because I was hired by MSNBC, and for two years, I was labeled as analyst, journalist, foreign policy expert, I was contributor,” Jebreal said. “I was never labeled a ‘Palestinian journalist.'”

She compared it to host Brian Stelter being labeled on air as a “white man” or Alan Dershowitz as “Jewish lawyer.”

“Who does that?” she asked, questioning the thinking behind MSNBC’s decision. Jebreal continued, “I think whoever is doing this PR campaign for MSNBC needs to rethink these issues. Did I become ‘Palestinian’ because this way you can describe me as emotional and as biased? And this way can avoid the debate about who is really biased on this issue? I think they need to give these answers not to me, to their audience.”

Or in the meantime, we can stop referring to MSNBC as a “cable news network” in favor of a more accurately descriptive label, because two can play at that game. Something like “biased media doody-brains?” It has a nice ring to it.

Anti-Israel is the default left-wing position, so what she’s really doing is calling out MSNBC for not sticking with the liberal orthodoxy — hardly an equivalent to the good-for-business, clickbait Fox-bashing posts, as you can see from the dearth of comments here.

If are opposed to ethnic cleansing doesn’t that mean you are anti-Palestinian too? Or does the fact that sometimes their rockets fall short or blow up while launching and therefore kill their own people make them non-discriminating killers?

If you launch an attack with intent to harm civilians, you’re human garbage. It doesn’t matter where you’re born or what you believe in. Anyone who counts themselves as “pro-” either side in this conflict is an ignorant fuck boy. There’s definitely a difference in firepower and vulnerability of populations to discuss here but that doesn’t change that fundamental fact.

You know what? Let’s assume — for purposes of this argument — that the Jews have not lived in Palestine and claimed it as their homeland for thousands of years. And let’s forget the fact that the Palestineans admit that they first arrived in Palestine after the Jews already lived there. And let’s assume that Israel was established by “violently colonising” Palestine, and not by an international grant of sovereignty. And let’s assume that Palestine has ever existed as an independent state or been an exclusively Arab area.

Your argument is actually going to be that it’s ok for Hamas to slaughter Israeli civilians because they’re “not ethnic to the region, therefore its [sic] not ethnic cleansing”? That’s your argument? If it doesn’t meet the definition of ethnic cleansing, then it’s fine? As long as the people you’re killing didn’t originate in that area, then you can kill them?

Either you haven’t thought this one through, or you’re a terrible, terrible person.

It’s not really spiteful. She is Palestinian and sympathetic to the Palestinians in their fight against Israel. If they *didn’t* report that in some way, it would be deceitful. (Imagine it the other way around — an Israeli Jew who lived in West Jerusalem who wrote pro-Israeli articles. If the person were on Fox News, and they didn’t put “Israeli Journalist” as their descriptor, Fox would be rightly derided as hiding their bias.)

Agreed sunny-dee. If someone has bias one way or another, and she definitely has bias, that needs to be reported up front before they make an argument. Then you know where their opinions are coming from and not just accept them as fact. This needs to happen more often on both sides of the political spectrum. Too many low I.Q. yahoos who only read headlines base their entire opinions on them without knowing the whole story.

Nope, you all are really missing the point. Sure someone might be biased, but to sum up their entire person as “Palestinian Journalist” is to completely negate anything they have to say. It’s exactly the same thing as that roundly criticized Fox News interview where they told that scholar that his work on the history of Jesus was completely worthless and biased because he was a Muslim (found here: [www.youtube.com]). I don’t think, and I really hope this is true, that you’d side with the moronic interviewer in that video.

People are not often merely “pro-Israel” or “pro-Palestine” in real life, unless they’re fucking dullards. It’s easy to dismiss someone when you just label them without any nuance. To actually listen to what they have to say requires far more honesty and intellectual integrity than most of us seem to be willing to muster.

And this is the issue with our current news reporting. They do EXACTLY what you ask them to do. The talking heads bring in a guest, promptly label them as some reductive likeness of their actual position, and then proceed to argue against the caricature that they’ve created. You want to really guard against a person’s bias? Listen to what they have to say BEFORE pre-judging them and then challenge them on specific points their bias has tainted. It’s especially ironic that you complain about “low I.Q. yahoos” who can’t read between the lines and then declare that everyone needs to decide what a person’s bias is before hearing a word they have to say. If you really want to change this miserable state we find ourselves in then you must educate yourself before forming an opinion. To do otherwise is to willingly count yourself among the stupids.

Have to agree with many commenters on here (JDP141, et al.) calling bullshit on this outcry of biased labeling. If she does not want to be called a “Palestinian Journalist” (even if MSNBC is guilty of changing her on-air title after the “bad blood/feud”), then she really should consider changing those exact words on the google-search summary/tag line for her own website (unless that was hacked). I’d say that’s a slam-dunk for MSNBC: “we simply used what you yourself chose to be labeled per your own website.” Again, unless she never approve that tag line, then what else could she possibly have as a defense?